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This was the wrong man. It wasn’t him.
It was six months since she’d seen him, but Alessio Capelli’s smooth sophistication and startling good looks were still inconveniently lodged in her brain. Not that it had been looks alone that had drawn her attention. For her, the quality that had made him dangerously attractive was his astonishing intellect. He was a man who used his razor-sharp brain to twist legal precedent to his advantage. His weapon was words, and he used them with lethal skill to achieve the outcome he wanted, whether it was winning a case or seducing a woman into his bed. As a lawyer he was, she knew, the very best.
As a human being—
Lindsay flinched as the man in front of her punched his fist hard into the bag. There was nothing smooth or suave about this particular man. On the contrary, he seemed to represent masculinity at its most basic level.
And then the angle of his body shifted and Lindsay drew in a sharp breath because she could now see the tiny scar above his left eye and the slight bump on his nose that blemished an otherwise faultlessly handsome face.
Once seen, never forgotten.
Every inch of his cold, hard features was etched into her memory for ever.
Horrified by the sudden flash of awareness that exploded through her body, Lindsay took a step backwards regretting the circumstances that had forced her into his path again.
Averting her eyes from his spectacular body, she suddenly wished he were dressed in a formal suit and standing on the other side of a very large desk.
How could she possibly have a serious conversation here?
He was half naked, for goodness’ sake.
Half naked and angry, if the power behind those rhythmic punches was anything to go by.
That missing file had obviously been something important.
He still hadn’t noticed her and it crossed her mind that she could still slink away and wait outside the door for him to finish his workout.
And then his gaze shifted and he stilled.
Dark, deep-set eyes connected with hers and in that single moment the world seemed to shrink. Nothing existed outside the square metre that contained the both of them.
They stared at each other in silence, exchanging a long, lingering glance that was wholly sexual. Trapped by the intimate demands of his intense dark gaze, Lindsey felt the blood pound in her head and she ceased to breathe.
He’d had exactly the same effect on her the first time she’d seen him and it was as terrifying now as it had been then.
Even knowing who he was and what he did for a living had done nothing to lessen the sheer physical impact of the man. He was unashamedly and blatantly masculine, his Sicilian roots evident in every bold line and hard angle of his impossibly handsome face. Stripped virtually naked, he was even more breathtaking. Unlike most men, he had no need of clothes as a disguise for physical imperfections. Alessio Capelli looked even better undressed than he did dressed.
His eyes were dark and framed by such thick, long lashes that it was as if nature had decided to emphasise such an unusually striking feature with extra care. Other men might have used those lashes as an effective screen for his emotions, but not Alessio Capelli. His gaze was direct and unflinching and she suspected that the reason he never felt the need to conceal his emotions was because he’d never actually experienced an emotion of any sort in his life.
He dealt with facts and numbers. And they were big numbers if the rumours were correct.
Feeling eighteen rather than twenty-eight, Lindsay cleared her throat. ‘Hello, Alessio.’
His fists dropped to his sides and his eyes didn’t leave hers. Then he slowly removed each of his gloves and dropped them onto a nearby bench.
‘You’ve chosen a romantic venue for a reunion, Lindsay.’ He spoke in perfect English, but in every way t
hat mattered he was pure Sicilian. The dark good looks, the arrogance, the simmering volatility barely held in check by the veneer of sophistication that surrounded him like another skin—all products of his ancestry.
A wicked thrill of pleasure that he hadn’t forgotten her was immediately replaced by dismay.
Flouting the powerful messages from her brain about not responding to him, her insides tumbled with excitement and her knees weakened. This was why she didn’t trust herself around him—every second that she was in his company, her life became a battlefield. She was instantly trapped in a vicious conflict between what her body wanted and what her brain wanted.
The layers of protection she’d built around herself melted away in an explosive blast of raw chemistry. Her grip on the present slipped, and her mind twisted the highly charged sexual attraction into the ugly, destructive monster she knew it to be.
Terrified by the sudden glimpse into her own vulnerability, Lindsay reminded herself again that this was about Ruby. Ruby was the reason she was here.
‘I’m surprised you haven’t forgotten me, given the number of blonde women in your life. They must merge after a while.’
